(posts) The Jackson Five, "I Want You Back"

(posts) the video for "You Make My Dreams" by Hall and Oates

Notes:

• The best band with the worst videos. 
• Cocaine?

(posts) "What Am I Doing Hangin' Round" by The Monkees

"What Am I Doing Hanging 'Round?"

Just a loud mouth Yankee I went down to Mexico.
I didn't have much time to spend, about a week or so.
There I lightly took advantage of a girl who loved me so.
But I found myself a-thinkin' when the time had come to go...

What am I doin' hangin' round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin' hangin' round?

She took me to the garden just for a little walk.
I didn't know much Spanish and there was no time for talk.
Then she told me that she loved me not with words but with a kiss.
And like a fool I kept on thinkin' of a train I could not miss...

What am I doin' hangin' round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin' hangin' round?

Well it's been a year or so, and I want to go back again.
And if I get the money, well I'll ride the same old train.
But I guess your chances come but once and boy I sure missed mine.
And still I can't stop thinkin' when I hear some whistle cryin'....

What am I doin' hangin' round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin' hangin' round?

Note:
At 0:24, Nesmith appears to sneer at someone (or something) off camera.

(posts) Hall & Oates performing "She's Gone"

"Rich Girl" and "You Make My Dreams Come True"? Both great songs. But "She's Gone" is my favorite. 

 

Written by Daryl Hall and John Oates, "She's Gone" appeared on the duo's 1973 album, Abandoned Luncheonette. This video captures them playing it in early 1976.

about being recognized

A lot of super hero movies have hit the screens in the last 12 years or so. Most of these super hero actors will be defined by these roles from here on out, especially among younger generations, and the actors will probably never be in a film that sells more tickets.

about "I Wear The Black Hat" by Chuck Klosterman

I Wear the Black Hat bounces around the topic of villainy with a collection of deftly written essays by American writer and essayist Chuck Klosterman. The reading flies by thanks to Klosterman's fresh prose. He's at his best when musing over the finer points of individuals and pop culture references; one of the best passages in I Wear the Black Hat finds Klosterman articulating the nuances of his (and many others') intolerance for the classic rock band The Eagles.

But, unfortunately, Klosterman too easily gives in to the temptation to sound profound, and the result is a handful of hasty generalizations; a prime example from this book is when he attempts to extrapolate a larger cultural lesson from the decline of 1980's flash-in-the-pan comedian Andrew Dice Clay.* This kind of fallacy is pervasive in the pop culture-centric variety of writing commonly found in sources like The New Yorker, Gawker, and Deadspin among others. Nevertheless, I Wear the Black Hat is an overall agreeable read by an astute observer and talented writer.


Notes:
* There have been so, so many Andrew Dice Clays--performers and artists who seem to suddenly appear but then disappear--that putting any single one of them under a microscope should attract a good measure of skepticism. In the case of the "Diceman," maybe interest in him waned simply because he only had one joke.

something about "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain

Billed as "The Uncensored Oral History of Punk", Please Kill Me testifies to punk rock's NYC birth in the mid-1970's. The book organizes quotes from a cast of people who were there--participants and witnesses, and these people describe the scene, say who's who, and, of course, talk about the sex and drugs. But noticeably missing in these quotes is elaboration on the rock and roll.

There is no date or period anchoring the end of this telling, but the notable event in the final pages is the death of Johnny Thunders, former guitarist of the New York Dolls and, later, The Heartbreakers. These bands--the Dolls, in particular--dominated the genre's salad days. The Stooges (aka, Iggy and The Stooges) and the New York Dolls are the book's favorites, followed by the Ramones and the mostly derided Sex Pistols. The Dead Boys get minor coverage, too. But the deaths of Sid Vicious, Stiv Bators, and, as noted, Johnny Thunders serve as the conclusion to punk's story--at least in this version, even though Bators and Thunders died 10 years after the core of events described in the book.

If you're really into the music of any three of the above-mentioned bands, then Please Kill Me is sweet, truthy gossip. If you're not, then the quotes and people fast grow petty and irrelevant--the narrators sometimes indulge the "more punk than you" pissing contest that strips punk of its cultural relevance by pretending this raw, resilient music that crackles with energy belongs only to them, those self-important members of their own inertly private country club.

Rihanna singing "Diamonds" on SNL

About New Music

I enjoy the album "Put Your Back N 2 It" by Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas), it has a few good sad songs. Also, parts of "Days" by Real Estate is agreeable, probably best suited for poolside. However, "Port of Morrow" by The Shins is not so good, I thought.

Something about Robyn's "Dancing on My Own" on SNL

I am pleased when I watch Robyn's Saturday Night Live performance of "Dancing on My Own" because what I see of her compliments what I hear. When I watch I detect a smidgen of awkwardness in her dancing, as if these moves are unpracticed, everything being improvised in unfamiliar space. And that fits the lyrics, which speak of a woman dancing alone in a night club, where it might be a little weird that she's dancing alone, emotionally, trapped between desperation and powerlessness; and it should be a little weird, noticeably so, that she's alone while the other dancers have paired off and bystanders drink among friends. She sings,

Yeah, I know its stupid, I just gotta see it for myself
I'm in the corner, watching you kiss her, Oh
I'm right over here, why can't you see me? Oh

Had the dancing looked choreographed, the effect would not be the same.



Notes:
It may be that these moves are not improvised, and that she's actually dancing flawlessly, comfortably (no doubt passionately). But this is just what I get out of it. And there's no way that Pete Townsend windmill move is choreographed.

Mike Nesmith on Davy Jones and The Monkees

Rolling Stone published an email interview with Mike Nesmith that included the following two question/answers:

RS: In your estimation, why did the Monkees burn out so quickly? The whole thing ended after little more than two years. 

MN: That is a long discussion – and I can only offer one perspective of a complex pattern of events. The most I care to generalize at this point is to say there was a type of sibling suppression that was taking place unseen. The older sibling followed the Beatles and Stones and the sophistication of a burgeoning new world order – the younger siblings were still playing on the floor watching television. The older siblings sang and danced and shouted and pointed to a direction they assumed The Monkees were not part of and pushed the younger sibling into silence. The Monkees went into that closet. This is all retrospect, of course – important to focus on the premise that "no one thought The Monkees up." The Monkees happened – the effect of a cause still unseen, and dare I say it, still at work and still overlooked as it applies to present day.

RS: Do you have a favorite Davy Jones-sung Monkees song? If so, what makes it your favorite? 

MN: "Daydream Believer." The sensibility of the song is [composer] John Stewart at his best, IMHO – it has a beautiful undercurrent of melancholy with a delightful frosting, no taste of bitterness. David's cheery vocal leads us all in a great refrain of living on love alone.

What to make of that first exchange? convoluted and cryptic as it is. Sounds like Nesmith argues that The Monkees evaporated not because they were a synthetic marketing formula, but because they were not. They were a real live boy mistaken for a wooden Pinocchio.

Secondly, I like his characterization of Jones' "Daydream Believer". I have always felt that melancholy chord in the performance--and that is the key to the song, because living on love alone can be only a dream. A mighty dream.

Notes:

• RIP David Thomas "Davy" Jones (30 December 1945 – 29 February 2012)